Liberty Meadows

This strip began life as University² in The Diamondback, the campus newspaper of the University of Maryland at College Park. Frank (the neurotic doctor) was a duck, and Leslie (the hypochondriac frog) was a lima bean (exactly what sort of legume he was supposed to be was a source of constant debate on campus), but Ralph the midget circus bear and Dean the male chauvinist pig (and that's pig as in boar, not pig as in boor) survived the transition from college paper to syndication. Other college-strip standbys like unauthorized lifting of characters from the other strips and blatant shots taken at the other cartoonists (which of course would make absolutely no sense taken out of context) didn't make the cut.

And then there's Brandy, the object of Frank's affection. Frank Cho's artistic treatment of this particular female form drew both high praise (for its quality) and harsh criticism, especially with the infamous scratch'n'sniff Brandy -- a full-page-length panel of the woman lying down wearing nothing but a strategically-draped bedsheet. This sort of thing also had to go with syndication, but it was fun while it lasted.

Just take any strip that he's drawn. Any single one - artistically speaking, there's not a bad one in the whole lot. Inspect the line. Cho's line is the equivalent of a BMW 750i. Elegance? Check. Power? In spades. Can do almost anything, get you places in supreme style? Just say when. The comic world hasn't seen an artistic talent like this one since Jeff Smith (Bone) or Mike Mignola (Hellboy). And Cho can tie two sable brushes behind his back and still whoop them in a back-alley bar brawl.

And Cho clearly loves the ladies. Or, ladies with pert noses, long manes of pureblack hair, and brick house bodies (36, 24, 36, what a winnin' hand...) but many artists over the past centuries seem to be the same way (Titian, Bougereau, etc.) so I think we can let this slide.

Liberty Meadows itself is an animal treatment center of sorts. Frank is a veterinarian there, and Brandy is a therapist. Brandy also has a friend, Jen, who works at NASA Greenbelt, who is a blonde with an even more stunning figure than Brandy, if that's possible. Frank Cho himself appears in the strip as a crazed monkey -- some of the best strips actually revolve around him and the artistic process, rather than the characters themselves.

The strip also includes plenty of references to Washington-area sports, particularly the Washington Redskins. Dean the male chauvinist pig and former fraternity mascot currently in Liberty Meadows for detox, reacted quite memorably to reading the news that former Dallas Cowboys cornerback Deion Sanders signed with the Skins, screaming/crying "There is no God!"

Update 4 January 2002: as of 31 December 2001, Liberty Meadows has moved to comic book publication only, and will no longer be published in newspapers. Some reasons given by Cho include the pressures of daily publication and need to spend more time with his wife and upcoming newborn, as well as frustration with editors that, to paraphrase Cho, want to bring the entire comics page down to a 5-year-old's level.